Friction
by potterlockedintheshire
Summary: "He can feel the burn time leaves as it slides across his skin, but that doesn't mean he'll stop resisting." Post-Reichenbach. Because nothing's ever as simple as "moving on."


_**Friction**_

Disclaimer: If I owned Sherlock, you wouldn't still be waiting for Series 3.

Thanks to Hannah for Beta-reading and not telling me to delete this immediately.

_"He can feel the burn time leaves as it slides across his skin, but that doesn't mean he'll stop resisting." Post-Reichenbach. Because nothing's ever as simple as "moving on."_

* * *

The only thing he sees in color anymore, real color, is Sherlock standing on the hospital roof, phone pressed to his ear and too far away and everything moves suddenly and _Sherlock no Sherlock stop Sherlock please, please don't. _Sure, the rest of John's life happens in reds and blues and greens like it does for everyone else, but nothing else is so sharp, like the lights have all been turned up a thousand times and it's shining, neon in a way that screams to be remembered _the redredred blood like his face is a canvas, the black of his hair too vivid for a color so dark _and everything else that happens is dimmed in comparison, not _real _color, because it's the things that hurt that get stuck in his mind, isn't it?

As if there's a needle stuck there, a pin marking it that just _stays, _won't let go and bloody leave him alone without scratching him all up first. He doesn't know whether it'd hurt worse to leave the marker in him, in his mind _what else can he do? How can you rid yourself of memory? _and feel the ache every time he's reminded of Sherlock _it's not a reminder anymore, just a constant, and for someone who's gone, he's all too much there_ or pull it out, let go and watch as he bleeds too, just like Sherlock on the pavement.

He doesn't think he could though, not really. It's burrowed too deep, the memory of Sherlock and everything that came with him. He's reminded of it every time he looks around the flat, because even in his own _home _the bastard won't leave him alone.

Harry mentioned moving out once, a phone call almost a year later and the gentle suggestion that "John, maybe you could find someone else to share a flat with. Just think about it?" He tries his hardest not to. But if he could choose what he thought about, well, wouldn't that just solve everything?

But he can't choose, and there's no getting around that now. He used to act like he could, a couple months after Sherlock- after he fell from the roof and- after.

"He's gone," he'd say, over and over and over _round and round the garden like a teddy bear _chanting it because maybe then it'd finally get through to him in the way he needs it to and doesn't think he could stand at the same time. "He's gone, he's gone, he's gone_," _and he doesn't know why he does this to himself except that he needs it.

And maybe he needs it, maybe it's better for him, but if it is, John doesn't want it. He doesn't want the quiet at three in the morning, and once he even bought a CD of violin music to put on in the middle of the night. It didn't help, though; too impersonal, too recorded. It didn't go quickly, spastically at random moments only to cut off suddenly followed by "Of course, garden shears!"

He wants to see microscopes in the kitchen or hear the gun shots as he rushes up the stairs. He wants Sherlock to say "Even you must be able to understand; you're not completely stupid" and he wants to never be able to have a proper bloody date because Sherlock's likely as not to walk in on it somehow. He wants to complain because _would you just go to the store for once? _and to be abducted by a controlling, over-protective big brother who hardly stops by now because the flat's got to be just as bad for him. John wants to get a text telling him to do something stupid _and by now he knows he'll do it anyways. He'll do it because it's stupid _and he wants to be threatened and nearly murdered and for his bloody hand to stop shaking and for everything to go back _why can't he just go back _for time to go back _he can feel the heat from the friction _and for Sherlock to come back _just one more time._

He's tired of hating how much he wants all these things.

And everything's just got to hurt, doesn't it? It would be too easy to let him move on. Instead he can feel the friction of the world as it turns, the burn time leaves as it slides across his skin, but that doesn't mean he'll stop resisting. He may not be able to go back, but he can stay firmly in place, even if it costs him, (and God, it does).

And John hates, _hates _the feeling of being alone, of _knowing _he's alone, almost as much as the truth of the matter. He hates that he's aware of what he can't do anything about _Damn it, Sherlock, didn't you think of that?_ So he stops, eventually- stops knowing- and goes back to making two cups of tea every morning because it's so much easier and doesn't he deserve something _easy _by now? Maybe someday he'll stop pretending.

John falls into the routine he'd tried so hard to break, and it feels so right that if it's wrong, he's long past caring. That doesn't mean it's better- no, it hurts so much more, the burn marks of kinetic friction as everything moves past him and he tries not to keep up. But it's a better kind of pain. It's the kind of pain that comes from something worth it. And if that's all he can do for Sherlock now, John will gladly let himself hurt.

John's resilient, though- he's willing to take the wounds and more, _anything, God, he'd give anything _if it means he can stop letting time carry him away. So he can feel the burn of the world turning against his skin, even if he tries not to look at the marks it leaves. He can feel the strain each time he remembers, and everything is whispering _let go, just let him go. _Maybe it'd hurt less if he did. But John Watson isn't a soldier for nothing.


End file.
